Possession
by Mahersal
Summary: One-shot series. She cried of it being evil and cursed with an eviler power than they could imagine. Her last words were, "His eyes! His red eyes! He laughs, oh he laughs! You are all just silly mortals." Silly innocent souls. Guilty.


**A collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! one-shots by Super Special Awesome Attack.**

**Theme: The dark natures of the Ring **

**Pairings: None**

**Character(s): Thief King/Yami Bakura, original characters essential to the idea**

**Time: Salem, Massachusetts, 1692.**

**Okie-dokie, since I am on a "hiatus," I am not really working on my main three stories. When you are bored at school and a plot bunny bites you, however, you cannot just ignore it. OH. MY. RA. The plot bunnies have been raping my mind with ideas. You should see how many draft papers I come home with every day after school. It's hysterical. I have so many one-shot ideas and even a short story featuring all of your favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! men. **

**In English class, we are learning about the Salem witch trials. While watching a movie on it, a plot bunny practically glomped me and infused this idea. Ryou wasn't the only one with the Ring. What about the other people that possessed it? What are their stories? And this was born! At first, I was going to do this in chronological order, but I screwed that over because I couldn't think of anything else at the moment. This is one of those stories that I'll write a one-shot for if I'm stuck on another story, bored, or in need of posting something. Posts won't be regular; I'll write when the bunny bites.**

**I also have a poll going on in my profile. Feel free to check it out!**

**Now, with all of that nice little information out, I introduce our tale!**

**Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! will never be mine, but Malik will one day.**

**Malik: In your dreams!**

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**Possession**

"**Guilty"**

As suspicion and fear amongst the colonists spread when Abigail Williams and her friends started having unexplainable fits and complained about being affected with the devil and witches, thirteen-year-old Beatrice Hicken was even more afraid to wear the interesting golden ring she found just a few weeks ago stowed away in a box in the cellar. She never remembered seeing it before when she was in the cellar playing with her friends, but she did not care. Something about it chilled her to the bone, but it was mysterious and alluring at the same time. Maybe it was the peculiar shape. It was nothing like she had ever seen before, a golden ring with five spindles that carelessly hung down and a triangle set in the middle of the ring, an intense golden eye on it. The eye scared her the most. It seemed as if it was trying to read her soul and dig deep inside, never letting go, never releasing. Yet…the eye was the part that attracted her the most. She wore the ring underneath her dress, hidden from all in the small village of Salem. Then the witch trials started, and she feared wearing the golden artifact. If she were caught wearing it, she was sure to be tried because it was so different and the eye in the center would be "the eye of the devil." She could never come to take it off, however.

"I'll be fine," she told herself every time she went to hear the minister preach each Sunday. A feeling in her gut always pulsed whenever she walked through the threshold of the parsonage, as if the ring should not be there. She ignored it every time.

"I'll be fine." She insisted.

__

_Of course, you will._

:::^:::

"Okay, it's your turn to count!" A little girl giggled and ran off into the forest, never too far for fear of the Indians.

Beatrice chuckled as well as the rest of her friends ran off in different directions. She rolled her eyes when one of her friends lingered to make sure she was counting.

"ONE! TWO! THREE!" she yelled at the girl. The girl laughed and ran off. Beatrice covered her eyes and resumed counting. "…thirty-eight…thirty-nine…forty! Ready or not, here I come!" She lifted her skirts up to make running into the underbrush easier. An innocent game of hide-and-seek was always a fun way to end a day. As she neared a group of trees, she heard a giggle come from her left. "Elizabeth! I know that's you!" she called, running a bit deeper into the forest, a tug of her gut alarming her. Hmm…her friends usually never strayed this far…

An ear-piercing scream echoed around her, birds flying out of the trees from their perches. She ran harder toward the sound, the noise of crunching leaves from behind telling her that her friends had joined her. They ran into a clearing not too far from Beatrice's house. In the middle of the field, a little girl was having convulsions. She screamed and screamed, each sound hitting Beatrice like a ton of bricks. She turned her head toward the group as they ran over to her and she gazed wide-eyed at the group.

"You're doing this to me!" she screeched at Beatrice. "Your…your specter is beating me!"

Beatrice could do nothing but stare as Elizabeth continued shrieking. She was doing nothing! Some of the villagers were coming to see what the commotion was. Beatrice felt the ring against her skin grow ice cold unexpectedly, the spindles gently prodding her skin. Beatrice subconsciously rubbed her golden possession. She though she saw a man with white hair standing next to Elizabeth with a smile on his face, but the instant she blinked he was gone.

"BLACK MAN! BLACK MAN!" Elizabeth howled, pointing at Beatrice's shoulder. "A man whispers to her!"

The small congregation that formed around the girl suddenly swamped Beatrice, grabbing her arms and leading her to the prison. Her mother watched her pass, tears silently falling down her cheeks. Her father comforted her mother; nothing could be done once someone was accused as a witch.

The trail was three days later, Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Warren prosecuting against their friend. Beatrice was heartbroken. How could her friends accuse her of being a witch when they knew perfectly well that she was faithful?

"How do you plead?" the judge asked.

Beatrice sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Innocent." A spindle of the ring poked her chest as if to say, "Lies."

_I do not lie,_ she thought, _I know I did nothing._

__

_Maybe, maybe not._

The crowd whispered to each other as the judge asked Beatrice questions regarding the devil, witches, her faithfulness, and whether she hurt Elizabeth and Mary.

"She did." Mary claimed. "We were in the woods playing an innocent game, and while she was torturing Elizabeth, she used her powers so I could not speak and expose her as a witch!"

"Is this true?" the judge asked Beatrice.

She shook her head vigorously and Mary began screaming. "SHE HURTS ME!" she wailed, clutching her chest. "She gives my heart pains!" Mary fell to the floor and shrieked, shaking uncontrollably.

"Don't you see?" Elizabeth said. "She's a-" Her sentence was interrupted by another scream of Mary.

"A BLACK MAN!" she howled. "A black man whispers in her ears! A black…" she trailed off, sitting up and staring blankly at Beatrice. Her pupils dilated and her open mouth was slack. Her blue irises changed to a startling red tint and her face drained of its color. "No…the man is white. And he wears…a ring. And he…" she trailed off again. Her pupils rapidly shrunk and her eyes rolled in the back of her head. A wild laugh escaped her lips before a black shadow slithered into her open mouth. Mary started seizing again, grabbing at the air as if something was squeezing the life out of her. She took a deep breath in, the shadow sliding out of her open mouth again before she fell over dead.

"Penalty Game defeat."

Every eye moved from the lifeless form on the floor to the smiling face of Beatrice. The Ring that hung around her neck glowed brightly, the same eye on the golden artifact on her forehead. Her red eyes raked over the audience, the crazed smile widening a bit before the eye faded. Beatrice staggered from her standing position and gasped. A confused look crossed her face as the people of the village looked at her with fear and anger.

"You. Are. A. WITCH. THE DEVIL POSESSES YOU!" the judge yelled and banged his gavel. "Guilty for the use of witchcraft and sorcery to kill an individual. Death by burning at the stake!" He looked at her nervously, afraid she would kill him as well.

"Wh-what? What happened?" Beatrice cried, struggling to get free from the men who were binding her arms with rope. "I am innocent! I am faithful! I-" her voice cracked from crying. The men led her down the aisle, her mother not meeting her eyes as she passed. "Mother! MOTHER! I AM INNOCENT! I KILLED NO ONE!"

A six-foot stake was driven in the middle of Salem village at four fifteen later that day. Beatrice Hicken cried as the men tied her to the pole. She was innocent, innocent, innocent…

__

_Guilty, guilty, guilty…_

"Let her be burned with her devil necklace!" the minister said when one of the men tried to take it off her. "It will melt in the heat and will be no more. Salem will be free of this monstrosity!"

Her father walked up and blindfolded his daughter with a black cloth, not giving her tears or heartbroken face a second thought. She cried, wailed, and screamed as the men piled the wood up at her feet. Slivers and wood chips pushed into her legs and feet, blood slowly crawling down her legs. She was innocent. Her friends were liars. She cried for her parents, but no one listened. She was left alone in a world of black and heat.

It is said her screams were heard all the way to the next village. People also say that at four thirty, the approximate time she was burned, they can hear her scream. Others say that she would send the mysterious black shadows to kill the children of the village, whispering lies of being guilty when they are innocent before taking their life. No one knows what happened to the mysterious ring she had on when she was burned. The men of Salem village dug through the charcoal and ashes, but found no evidence that the object ever existed. However, before the flames and smoke sucked the life out of her, people say that she shrieked of a man in a red robe with horrible red eyes residing inside the ring. She cried of it being evil and cursed with an eviler power than they could imagine. Her last words were, "His eyes! His red eyes! He laughs, oh he laughs! You are all just silly mortals."

__

_Silly innocent souls. _

_Guilty._

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**And that just about sums it up! I was pretty happy with how this came out. Sorta dark, yes, but it's Bakura we're dealing with. Remember to visit the poll I have in my profile!**

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**Over and out,**

**Awesome**


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